Updated with a link to another cool video I found explaining the basics of Bitcoin, what it is, how it works, etc.

As I have said countless times before, I put on this dog and pony show as a hobby, due to my love of anime and Japan, not to mention playing with geeky things like audio hardware and server software. It is by no means my primary source of income. Unfortunately, this doesn’t come cheaply — audio hardware, servers, etc. cost a pretty penny — and in this down economy, I could use every little bit of help I can get. That’s why I am extremely grateful for all of the listeners and viewers out there who have taken the opportunity to help me out by buying from one of our affiliate sites, clicking on ad banners and/or donating.

Well, you can now help us out in yet another way, by donating using Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a fascinating new secure, decentralized digital currency technology that promises to revolutionize the way we exchange money and transact business, both online and offline. (Here is a really good video that explains the basics of Bitcoin, what it is and how it works.) Anyone can set up their own Bitcoin wallet and start receiving and sending Bitcoins right away. Or, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious (and you have shiny powerful computer hardware), you can get into the wild world of Bitcoin mining (here’s a cool video explaining the concept) and start generating your own Bitcoins. And, lest you think all this digital currency crap is worthless, well, it isn’t: Bitcoins are actually worth real money and can be freely exchanged with actual currency, and there are an increasing number of businesses that will sell you goods and services for bit coins instead of traditional currency.

Well, Otaku no Podcast is the latest such entity. You can donate using the handy donate button and/or QR code on our Help Us page, in the sidebar of every page on this site, and also at the bottom of this article; or, if the links don’t work for you, our Bitcoin address is 14hYjheG9W7aWip7KwLPcfXxoXdALwDcma. And, once again, thank you for your help and generosity. You rock. Seriously.

There is no “Bitcoin entity.” That’s the whole point of it: it is decentralized. The code is all open-source and has been peer-reviewed by thousands, and is on solid footing in terms of security/cryptography.

The problem of course is in the bitcoin exchanges, and yes I imagine there are less than reputable exchanges. But those are fairly quickly found and ratted on/shunned by the bitcoin community. If you stick with the longer-lived/more well known exchanges (e.g. mtGox), then you’re probably OK. (essentially the typical “stay out of the seedy parts of the Internet” type warning)

There’s also the bitcoin pools, groups of users who band together to pool their computing resources together to get a better chance of minig bit coins (Otherwise the chance of an individual successfully mining bitcoins is diminishingly small) It’s sort of like SETI@home or Folding@home for Bitcoin, except that when a cryptographic “block” is solved, everybody who contributed to solving that block gets a piece of the proceeds. Again there are no doubt shady ones, and these are generally found out and self-selected against by the community. There are quite a few good pools out there that are well known, have been around for a long time and are favored by the community and known to be on the level.

The issue of shady exchanges/pools will soon get better too. FinCEN, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement arm, has recently weighed in on digital currencies such as Bitcoin. And the news for us as users is good. Users (both individuals and pools) have basically been given free license. We can trade, mine, etc. to our heart’s content. However larger entities — the exchanges — now have to go through some regulatory stuff, recordkeeping, accountability, etc., just like a bank does.

Having said all that, I still have not yet paid cash for bitcoins, and probably won’t at least for a while. However I certainly wouldn’t mind transacting business in bit coins, nor would I mind if anyone were to kindly donate some to me. 🙂 And I might even, at some future point, convert to cash, if the exchange rates look good.

Oh, and the financial sector as a whole is starting to take notice. There’s been quite a bit of Bitcoin publicity lately, both in mainstream news as well as the big financial news outlets (CNN, Financial Times, Forbes, etc.) Opinions range the gamut from “This is crap!” to curioisity to cautious optimism to “this is going to revolutionize things!” boosterism.